Politics, parenting and other prattlings.

December 31, 2005

Why judges can be dangerous

Another example of why American society treats litigation as another lottery game because judges just can't say "no"

A driver who had been drinking and admitted he took a curve too fast can sue The Newhall Land and Farming Company because his car skidded off a Valencia road and hit a berm on the firm's land, causing his sports car to overturn. [...]

Motorist Douglas Domel of Santa Clarita also has legal action pending against the city of Santa Clarita and the manufacturer of the 2001 Dodge Viper he was driving.

December 29, 2005

Despite Spielberg's moral muddle

The Mossad could not have made a better film to recruit volunteer agents than Steven Spielberg's most recent film, Munich. [...]

"You Israelis are not willing to let anyone play with your mind," said Amanda. "If there are Arabs that are murdering you, you get up and kill them. I admire your Mossad and I wish I could join it," [...]

...it is very possible that the makers of Munich did not take into account that the general mood and prevailing consensus in the United States and other democracies, since 9/11, is that terror should be fought everywhere it can be found. Or as Amanda put it, "Those bastards need to be killed and the Mossad does it very well." [...]

Only when Mossad agents blundered, such as in Norway in 1973, when they killed the wrong man in Lillehammer, did they pay the price and spend time in a Norwegian jail.

That is why it was so interesting to hear the wife of a former American filmmaker, a former Israeli herself, who came to share that meal with three members of her family immediately after seeing the film. "Extraordinary," she stated. "A film made on the highest level and which caused me, as an Israeli, to feel a special sense of pride - that one cannot kill us without Mossad agents eventually coming to avenge our blood. And then too, unlike Arab murderers, we make sure to harm only the murderers and no one else."

December 27, 2005

Portrait of unadulterated evil

This non-human is someone Spielberg tries to appease. See how much appeasement works:

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation. [...]

Mohammed Daoud planned the Munich attack on behalf of PLO splinter group Black September, but did not take part and does not feature in the film.

He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.

"If he really wanted to make it a prayer for peace he should have listened to both sides of the story and reflected reality, rather than serving the Zionist side alone," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from the Syrian capital, Damascus. [...]

"We did not target Israeli civilians," he said.

"Some of them (the athletes) had taken part in wars and killed many Palestinians. Whether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier."

In a review of the film, a pivotal and absolutely fictional scene takes place where terrorists and Israelis find themselves in a standoff, pointing guns at each other and shouting, until they both realize the futility and put down their weapons. As Daoud clearly illustrates, something like that could never happen, because as soon as the pig/monkey Jew put down his gun, the superior moslem is under Koranic orders to execute him, by all means possible.

If Speilberg reads the remarks of execrable jihadist/mass murderer Daoud and doesn't realize how the film Munich makes the terrorist case, then he has become more of a moral fool than I first feared.

And make no doubt. I have never fired a gun, but I would have no problem pulling the trigger and splattering a wall with Doaud's brains. He is a blight and deserves a fate no better than the rabid dog his truly is.

But, but...we were told Iraq ...

... was all kite-flying and laughing children by documentarian extraordinare Michael Moore.

A mass grave has been discovered in the predominantly Shia city of Karbala south of Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
Dozens of bodies have reportedly been found, apparently those of Shia rebels killed by Saddam Hussein's army after its defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.

The Shia revolt was crushed and as many as 30,000 people were killed, many of them buried in mass graves.

The remains were uncovered by workmen digging a new water pipe in the centre of the city known for its Shia shrine.

They called the police, who cordoned off the area. Clothing found with the bodies indicated that they included men, women and children. *

ACLU at it, again

BOYNTON BEACH, FLA---The Palm Beach County School Board is the target of a federal lawsuit filed Dec. 22 by a high school junior and the American Civil Liberties Union for allegedly punishing the student for refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Acting on behalf of a public school student who says he was harassed and punished for refusing to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has filed a lawsuit against Palm Beach County school officials for failing to respect the First Amendment rights of 17-year-old Cameron Frazier.
[...]"I believe that the real meaning of the flag - freedom, liberty and equality - has been tarnished by the recent policies of our government," said Cameron.[that's right, Cameron. You probably were too busy four years ago discovering your personal joystick to notice what happened in NYC and DC .... ed.]
[...]
The ACLU is asking a Palm Beach federal court to declare Florida Statute 1003.44 (1) and the school district's policy unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU is also asking the court to prohibit school officials from disciplining or retaliating against Frazier for refusing to stand.

Weird though, that women's hair is so more worthy of supernatural wrath themselves("...More women than men died...") instead of against moslem dolts beating women in the streets, or chopping the heads off Christian girls on their way to school.

December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas --- tipsy musings

It's a tad past 9:30 pm (my time, heheheh) and I've wandered upstairs, wine glass in hand leaving a house strewn from end to end with bits and shards of giftwrap and ribbon, cracker crumbs and paper plates.

It was a nice day, of 70 or so degrees [THANK YOU, JAYSUS], house full of family and conversation. The twins were on overload, with a pile of boxes to shred and wanting to play RIGHT NOW with the toy just upwrapped. Their great-grandparents got them a Tonka firetruck and a Hummer, an immediate hit.

Whoa. 4 Generations and the twins will grow to know their greatgrandparents. How cool is that?

I rearranged all the furniture on the first floor so we wouldn't be stepping on one another -- it worked! Damn, I may just keep it this way. Or not. f*ck.

No work tomorrow. Save to nursing the hangover I know I'm going to have. Or maybe. I've been on high alert all day and until the last hour it's been impossible to get me tipsy, let alone drunk no matter what I've been drinking. Jenn made peppermint martinis earlier (I tried some)... I've spiked my hot wassail with rum (generously) and then I've been drinking wine all along.

Hey, I wanted a buzz and couldn't get it!! Argh. Stoooopid metabolism. But I'm kinda there now as the crowd has left and the day winds down.

Most of all, it's been a pretty damned nice day. Only one present lost (what the hell... I bought it where did it go?) amongst the pile, no fights, no arguments and little major drama.

Ok. With the excitement, Sean wet his pants...as he was sitting on Heather's lap. Otherwise...no bruises, no blood, no cops.

Screw my glass. I'm going to go find the rest of the wine bottle and drink it direct, turn on the last of the marathon A Christmas Story and make a concerted effort to push myself from "tipsy" to "drunk."

This and That - Countdown to Christmas

Blogging is gonna be a bit light over the next few days as I spend most of my time with family and friends during Christmas.

Remember all the hoohaw when Korea suddenly surged to the forefront of embryonic stem cell research? All the brickbats tossed at anyone that not just questioned the research itself, but only questioned the federal funding of it? Oh, well, it seems that the scientist faked it.

I won't be seeing Munich. After Schindler's List, if what I'm reading about Munich is true, then I think we can hold Steven Spielberg as an example that moral clarity is something that can be easily lost. And would someone please tell me how Spielberg makes a movie about Israelis when he refused to have anything to do with Israelis?

"I was not invited to a preview screening," says Zvi Zamir, who was head of the Mossad at the time of the Munich killings and who, according to foreign reports, supervised the subsequent liquidations from European headquarters. "I am ready to buy tickets so that Spielberg will get compensation from me, too," Zamir says sarcastically. He thinks that if the director was interested in historical credibility, he should have spoken with him and his colleagues. "I imagine that Spielberg is interested mainly in how the film can make money and not in the historical truth."

If Spielberg had taken the trouble to approach the Prime Minister's Office, he would have received red-carpet treatment. A directive would have been issued to the Mossad chief to instruct the agents who were involved in or familiar with the affair to cooperate with Spielberg: to share experiences, volunteer anecdotes and give advice, within certain constraints.

Zamir would have spoken to Spielberg. Maybe even publicity-hating Mike Harari - who headed the Mossad's operations branch at the time and coordinated the reprisals - would have agreed to meet with him. But Spielberg and Kushner decided to shy away from any connection with Israel. From its reservoir of experts in the intelligence community and outside it, they chose to rely on Yuval Aviv, who was the source for the book by Canadian journalist George Jonas, "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team," on which the film is based. The trouble is that Aviv, now 58, never served in the Mossad.

I would caution anyone that sees this film to judge it only as a work of fiction and art. Obviously, it has little connection to historical fact or courageous moral judgment. Read this for background and analysis.

I found this Google doodle ...
... just a tad strange. Part of a series that I suppose we are to await with breathless anticipation.

A Dutch court convicted a Dutch chemicals merchant of war crimes, sentencing him to 15 years in prison for selling Saddam Hussein's regime the materials used in lethal gas attacks on Kurdish villages in the 1980s.

That can't be, because we all know that Saddam never had WMD's. Ever. All kites and puppies.

December 20, 2005

University Administrator bans Christmas

An administrator at California State University, Sacramento has banned decorations pertaining to Christmas and the 4th of July, among other holidays, from her office because they represent "religious discrimination" and "ethnic insensitivity."

"Time has come to recognize that religious discrimination, as well as ethnic insensitivity to certain holidays, is forbidden," Patricia Sonntag, director of the Office of Services to Students with Disabilities, stated in the directive she e-mailed to members of her staff on Dec. 9. [...]

The memo specifically names Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine's Day, the 4th of July, St. Patrick's Day and Easter as the most offensive holidays, but Sonntag adds that they are "off the top of the list," implying that there may be others.

She wrote that the ban was being implemented "in order to avoid offending someone else" because Sacramento State is "a secular university and we are a public service area that has a diverse employee and student populations [sic] even in our private offices."

It should be noted that the university itself has backed away from Ms. Sonntag, saying there is nothing in their guidelines prohibiting holiday decorations.

IMHO, anyone that finds the 4th of July as "offensive" needn't be working for a California State University.

December 19, 2005

Playtime?

Bad Santas

WELLINGTON, New Zealand Dec 17, 2005 — A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus costumes, many of them drunk, rampaged through New Zealand's largest city, robbing stores and assaulting security guards, police said Sunday.

The rampage, dubbed "Santarchy" by local newspapers, began early Saturday afternoon when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an Auckland overpass, said Auckland Central Police spokeswoman Noreen Hegarty.

She said the men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage containers, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on buildings.

One man climbed the mooring line of a cruise ship before being ordered down by the captain. Other Santas, objecting when the man was arrested, attacked security staff, Hegarty said.

The remaining Santas entered a downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks.

December 18, 2005

The President's speech

In all three aspects of our strategy -- security, democracy, and reconstruction -- we have learned from our experiences, and fixed what has not worked. We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission. Yet there is a difference between honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope. For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed. And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq, we are winning the war in Iraq.

It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it.

'I'm outraged.'

GOOD GOD! Same sanity on 'spying'

In his fictional settings, people live in environments where they subject themselves to the constant watchful eye of various pieces of automation for their convenience and safety. If one of his characters wants a cheeseburger, all he has to do is speak the desire aloud; the household automation is always listening. And if someone collapses, the house will call for medical help automatically because it was paying attention the whole time. [...]

That’s where we are, too, more or less. We accept certain forms of surveillance without a second thought because they make our lives better: security cameras at banks and hospitals, discreet searches and even pat-downs at airports, “Your call may be monitored for quality-control purposes.” If I knew that the NSA were listening in on every international phone call I made but that the government was enjoined from using anything they discovered against me unless they had followed the rules of evidence, would I object? Not a bit. And while I understand the point of view of those who do — an offense to principle isn’t a hard thing to relate to — I think they would benefit from a healthy dose of oh-quit-being-so-stuck-up.

Thank you, Jeff!

Let me add something from my perspective as someone who works in the judicial arena. In those law enforcement agencies that pay particular attention to gangs, information gathering is intense. They track graffitii, cultivate informers, surveillance as unobtrusive as possible, record and review phone calls out of the jail, etc. And this may end up involving people who are NOT gangbangers but who are associated with them, casually or through family. Is this something to be worried about from "civil rights" principle? For some. But let's consider the alternatives. There's a tactic some gangs like to use, and that's putting a sympathic but "clean" person into the judicial system -- employment at the court clerk's office, unsworn employee in the jail system -- that gang leaders can tap for information on their enemies, witnesses against them, etc. Surveillance helps ferret these people out before they can do much damage.

Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said.

The blame-mongering post 9/11 was that the Bush Administration didn't "connect the dots." Today's faux-outrage over a carefully crafted program to be as nimble as possible and within understood legal parameters to is deny any future dots to be discovered.

More media whoring

First it was Mommy Sheehan doing centerfold spread on her son's grave for Vanity Fair, now - via Tammy, it's Michael Shiavo's turn in People Magazine to vogue at Terri's gravesite.

As I commented at Tammy's, the most salient point of the whole Schiavo affair is about how the LAW should approach these life and death issues. Terri was not on extraordinarly life support. She was only being cared for as one would any fully dependent individual - bathed, talked to, fed, hydrated, etc. Even the original malpractice case, the award was based on what was considered would be her normative lifespan in her dependent state.

Terri left no written instructions. Indeed, the testimony on Terri’s purported verbal wishes was, IMHO, exceedingly thin (and pretty self-serving by Michael). Since Terri was NOT on life support and left NO written instructions, the argument is, basically, should the law take a DEATH default or a LIFE default?

In other words, should Terri’s custody, absent Terri’s own unequivocal instructions, go to those that are willing to care for her until natural death occurs or go to someone that wants to put her down?

This became an alarming matter to people who have family members who are severely disabled, since it comes startling close to open euthanasia. Couple that with Michael’s attorney and his major medical "expert witness” ARE open advocates of euthanizing the “inconvenient” and that Michael had already moved on with his life, taking a mistress and having children with her, and you have a situation in which Michael’s motive appears less than sterling and his subsequent behavior (such as putting Terri’s death date on her tombstone as the day she went into a coma, and his media whoring above) reinforces and to some extent substantiates the initial appearance.

December 17, 2005

Wow

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York woman threw her one-month-old son from the third floor of a burning building and the baby was caught by an amateur baseball player standing outside, media reports said on Thursday.

Local television stations aired a videotape of Wednesday's dramatic rescue in the Bronx taken by a surveillance camera.

It showed the baby, swathed in white, tumbling some 30 feetinto the arms of Housing Authority employee Felix Vazquez, one of several people waiting below.

Mom was later rescued and both are doing well.

Nice to have good news and to see heroes get a couple of column inches once in a while.

Saturday reading -- so much, too little time

It's the last weekend before Christmas, Siobhan will be home from Frisco later today, Edward flies in from Oregon tomorrow and I plan on spending quality time this morning introducing boxes of various shapes to wrapping paper and ribbon. Blogging may be sporadic.

Jeff Harrell finds just the right words to describe the Iraqi election.

For the first time in six hundred generations, the people of Iraq are truly free. Not by coincidence, not because of some random confluence of events, but because a group of determined visionaries and hundreds of thousands of soldiers from dozens of nations acted with swift resolve to make it so.

John at Powerline compares the Republican and Democrat resolutions congratulating the Iraqis, noting that the (adopted) Republican one was clear and unequivocal about victory and rejected withdrawl timetables. Nancy Pelosi continues the art of high whine while planting her stilletos into the backs of American troops.

First the Gray Lady continues to whore for the "We hate Bu$Hitler more than we lovelike tolerate America" crowd, then the President answers quite clearly. It's time to arrest NYTimes reporters and indict those that leaked to them.

Michelle Malkin brings us the latest on border security and just passed House bill.

Cathy Young points to a survey of high school students of one Florida county

More male high school students - 16 percent - reported being physically hurt by their significant others than female students, at 11.8 percent.

Cathy raises reasonable questions about how this survey defines its own terms.

Jay Dyson has the lastest New York Times deadtree edition frontpage. Heh.

December 15, 2005

On Feminism: a quadrant answer to a binary question

The discussion and debate over "authentic" Feminism continues with especially noteworthy posts from Jeff Goldstein and Cathy Young. Certainly the volume of recent writing and the long comments threads have yielded much heat (and some light), even if the "sides" in the debate still have yet to agree on terms.

I still find the binary problematic because it is so very reductive. Young and Hoff-Summers’ definitions of “gender feminism” don’t describe me at all, but I find little in the “equity feminist” camp that applies to me outside of the most basic philosophy.

While I partially agree with Lauren that there are arguments within Feminism on specific issues that demonstrate no monolithic dogma, I believe there are some significant differences that do divide American Feminist ideology along some very clear lines.

If we assume the initial, observable premise that gender disparities exist, we can then plot the very different assumptions and solutions that divide American Feminism into very different camps.

I'm specifically dealing with American Feminism because, Constitutionally, we are already equal before the law as citizens - i.e. American women already have the vote and are not legally barred from any profession or elected office that similarly qualified men have the opportunity to pursue.

With that in mind, I would set up my initial graph thusly:

X axis - Gender Assumption

At one end "Indentical": men and women are the same, interchangeable. Any gender difference is the sole result of societal/familial pressures to conform to rigid, defined sex roles.

At the other end "Different": men and women are inherently different. Regardless of the whims of societal/familial pressures, certain behaviors will remain constant.

Y axis - Disparity Solution

At the top "Social" - the best way to deal with observable gender differences is through persuasion, i.e. debate, discussion, or private action.

At the bottom "Legal" - the best way to deal with observable gender differences is through law and/or the courts.

Thus we have four quadrants that will cover the significant breaks in American Feminism.

What I'm going to do next is to develop sets of questions specific to this graph and create a simple program that will allow someone to chart where they will fall within the quadrants.

Discussion and suggestions for relevant questions or even the naming of the quadrants welcome.

Who would you invite to Christmas dinner?

These happy, positive about the future people?

Or one of the minions this guy hangs with?

Or maybe this year you'll eschew the crazy-assed relative that dominates the conversation, manages to insult all your guests, drinks too much and keeps bragging about that one moment of 15 minute fame that makes them a legend in their own mind. You know --

click for larger image

Media whore, Mommy Sheehan, posing for a Vanity Fair spread by pretending to nap on her son's grave.

December 14, 2005

What the Legacy Media left out

I'm feeling charitable tonight, so I'll let ...

... someone else please explain why this and this, columns written by Dennis Prager concerning practical, solid, non-controversial advice for those about to consider marriage should engender either mocking or outright hostility.*

Of course, people are so absolutely mature, thoughtful and both intellectually and emotionally aware that divorce is almost unknown in this country. Dennis just wastes column inches addressing the issue at all.

::::sigh::::

*Ok. I have a few clues about St. Amanda and why she consistently belittles marriage [and non-leftists of every stripe] ...

December 12, 2005

Hey, I'm an equity feminist - Deal with it.

When JeffG questioned Lauren's post on wearing the hijab as a "feminist statement" a kerfluffle arose as commenters on JeffG's thread rolled their eyes and Lauren wrote a follow-up post tossing in the rhinestone-studded glove with "Flame war, ahoy!"

Irony, is on the heels of Lauren and Jill's frequent claims that not all feminists are alike and Rox post

Contrary to popular assumption, not all feminists agree on every issue.

We are then treated to the dismissal of all women (and men) who don't fall into the narrow stereotype as ANTI-feminist by the likes of Trish and St. Amandaof Fornicatus.

This is exactly the same problem reasonable liberals are having with their radical leftist cousins.

Feminism is about opportunity and choice, and the personal freedom to follow one's own talents unrestricted by gender-specific LAW. Feminism is about one of the most conservative/classical liberal ideals in the political pantheon, individualism. What SOME feminists would have is feminism defined solely as a collective identity; that being a feminist is to embrace an ideology top heavy with authoritarianism -- using legal measures to "correct" all perceived inequities in society, right down to personal choices in career, health and relationships.

Have some questions about laissez-faire abortion? Anti-feminist.

Think promiscuity may not be the next best thing since sliced bread? Anti-feminist.

Think children do better at home with mom and not in day care 60 hours a week? Anti-feminist.

Think there are inherent gender differences? Anti-feminist.

Never heard your vagina talk to you? Anti-feminist.

Ad nauseum.

Feminism and Leftism are not interchangeable ideologies. I'm tired of having to define and redefine the terms all over again. As long as one believe men and women are of the same moral worth, stand before the LAW equally, and should have the same opportunities to take them where their talents lead, ONE IS A FEMINIST.

To those that keep insisting that one is only an authentic feminist when one embraces Leftist politics? I'd say fuck yourselves, but you're doing such a good job of that already.

JeffG finds the Authentic Feminists are quite forthcoming on actually defining their terms.

December 10, 2005

Richard Pryor, RIP

the groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and modern life made him one of Hollywood's biggest black stars, died of a heart attack Saturday. He was 65.*

However the rollercoast of his life and the ebb and flow of his career, Pryor was rock-solid funny, something a lot of flash-in-the-pan "comedians" put second to shock.

IIRC the first time I saw him was as a guest on The Glen Campbell show back about 1969 or 70. He was one of my faves of the show, along with another little known (at the time) comedian, George "Wonderful World of WINO" Carlin.

More pro-voucher evidence

"Zero-tolerance" as an excuse for the suspension of judgement are part and parcel of the public school bureaucracy. And in this case there wasn't even any written rule under which the student was suspended.

Unreal.

UPDATE Looks like my msnbc link expired. Link now is to WaPo article. Thanks to Strider for alerting me.

Refresh my memory ...

LOS ANGELES Dec 9, 2005 — Community leaders Friday called for peace in the city if convicted killer and Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams is put to death next week as scheduled.*

Of course, not everyone in South Central waxes poetic about Tookie.

"What hurts is that some people are trying to blame Stan for the 25 years of uncontrollable violence that happened after he went to prison," said Williams' ex-wife, Bonnie Williams Taylor. "That's not his fault any more than it was Al Capone's or Bonnie and Clyde's."

But Deborah Brown, a volunteer at the Weingarten YMCA Wellness Center south of downtown, doesn't buy it.

"He killed four people and started one of the worst gangs on the planet," she said, shaking her head. "I understand that some people are saying he changed in prison, but that won't bring those people back. Somebody's got to pay for that."

why it's dangerous

Shorter Mandy

...goddammit ... how dare anyone think marriage is cool or think of sex is anything more than mutual masturbation and stop telling girls (I don't give a fuck about boys) to respect themselves ... because of the PATRIARCHY.

Narnia to the big screen

and it makes quite a few people ... well ... nervous.

A whole plethora of reviews are gathered at Rotten Tomatoes. By and large, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is getting a thumbs-up, take-the-family recommendation of reviewers. What I find interesting is the tone of those that are hostile to the picture:

... a crass product of merchandised morality from Disney and Walden Media, a media company owned by Christian evangelist billionaire Philip Anschutz. ... In keeping to a PG rating, not to mention placating his Christian paymasters, Adamson makes war seem a pretty bloodless and painless affair *

Regardless of the aspect of frightening Christianity (cue the sound of horses screaming) I plan on seeing this movie soon.

Things that chap my ass ...

... I can't see the top of my desk at work, reports are piled on the floor as I triage them for dates and seriousness of charges. I just got rid of one hovering detective and reassured an attorney that yes, I will check with the court tomorrow to make sure the warrant is in the system ...

Phone rings

AND IT IS A FUCKING TELEMARKETER wanting me to subscribe to the [local] newspaper. MY WORK number! I say, incredulous, "uh..this is a place of business."

She starts, so chirpy I want to reach through the phone and yank her liver up through her nose, "Oh. Well, I'm sure you'ld love to take it there and share with ..."

I hung up on her. :::sigh::: I then spent the next several moments thinking of all the really nasty, lovely vicious things I could have said.

Birds do it, bees do it, looks like even angels

A Christmas wrapping paper giveaway went awry in Ottawa, Canada, when the paper turned out to feature pairs of naughty angels.

According to Canada’s Globe and Mail, the Virgin Mobile Canada promotional campaign included a distribution of the wrapping paper to weekend moviegoers at theater chain Cineplex Entertainment LP. The chain halted the campaign after a parent and a minister complained.

At first glance, the angels on the red wrapping paper seem to be simply embracing. But closer inspection reveals a male angel grasping the breast of his female partner, while she has hold of his genitals, as they kiss. Both sport full white angel garb.

Sounds like great paper to wrap and mark those "personal" holiday Christmas gifts to one's significant other that one does NOT unwrapped in front of the parents.

December 07, 2005

Just because abortion is legal

Do you know where a lot of domestic porn is made? In Chatsworth, California. Porn is legal and the making of it generates revenue for the San Fernando Valley town.

However, it's not the kind of thing one would be proudly highlighting on the "Welcome to our city" website.

So I'm just a little disturbed at the cheerleading tone taken by Jill at Feministe with her post on New York City being the Abortion Capital of America.

Abortion, like porn, is legal. Adult women have the right to obtain one with little restriction practically right up to birth, certainly up to 24 weeks' gestation.

But, excuse me; this is something to be proud of?

Abortion under almost all circumstance is tragic. It represents a reaction to failure - a failure of planning or a failure of conception. We certainly can feel sympathetic, empathetic, and compassionate towards the woman who chooses abortion, but it is wholly inappropriate to feel congratulatory.

A: After my boyfriend left, I found out I was pregnant. I had an abortion yesterday.

B: Woohoo! Way to go, sister! Best thing, evah! I need to buy you a t-shirt.

Somehow, I just don't think tour agencies are going to jump at organizing a vacation in the Big Apple featuring a 5 day/4 night stay in a four-star hotel, tickets to a Broadway show, a carriage ride around Central Park and an abortion at a premiere hospital with a souvenir gown to mark the occasion.

The vast majority of abortions are done in the first trimester and not because of either the woman's health is in danger or the non-viability of the fetus. It is done because the woman finds the pregnancy inconvenient.

Some women choose to put their convenience second to the nascent human life they find themselves carrying. Many times those babies are adopted into loving homes.

No, it is not easy and can be very heart wrenching, but such a decision is truly something to be proud of.

December 06, 2005

Suffer the children

They are not rookies on the force. They have faced the banality of crime and the bankruptcy of soul of the people they have arrested.

But still they hesistated before opening the hospital room door.

Such a large table, such a little body.

The room is cold, but that's not the reason for their gooseflesh or the overwhelming need to talk in soft tones, almost whispers.

One raises the camera as the other gently folds back the sheets, quietly apologizing to the little girl. They have to document the numerous bruises over the tiny body. They try not to think of her 19 fractures - ribs and skull. They try not to think about her four short months of life, four short months of terror and pain.

They just do their job ... and hold her little hand and stroke the soft curve of her cheek and speak to her softly, in comfort, telling her that she has nothing to fear any more, no more pain to endure, that she is loved and not forgotten. That they will not forget her.

We want Climate Gender Justice!

It's one of those observable truisms that when an advocacy group gains most of the change they originally worked for, the acolytes (unwilling to admit success and move on) double-down and start seeing all issues through their agenda lens.

Gender feminists, who dominate a movement in the West that has largely gained its equity goals, has again proved its shrill silliness by claiming:

The spokesman for a feminist-based environmental group accused men of being the biggest contributors to human-caused "global warming" and lamented that women are bearing the brunt of the negative climate consequences created by men.

Rohr, who is demanding "climate gender justice," left no doubt as to which gender she believes was the chief culprit in emitting greenhouse gasses.

"To give you an example from Germany, it is mostly men who are going by car. Women are going by public transport mostly," Rohr told Cybercast News Service. Rohr was standing in front of her booth, which featured a banner calling for "creative gender strategies" from "rural households to global scientific bodies."

A quick perusal of Genanet is to observe a group who is religiously dedicated to using the word "gender" as an adjective to proceed any issue noun:

Gender&Biodiversity

Gender&Energy

Gender&Climate Change

Gender&Agriculture&Nutrition

Gender&Sustainability

I'm sure that last point is a mission paper on how to sustain Gender Justice Issues into perpetuality.

December 05, 2005

But don't, don't question their patriotism! Evah!

JOhn KErry updates his 1971 Winter Soldier testimony as a warm-up of the 2008 election cycle by declaring US troops in Iraq as terrorists*

SCHIEFFER: All right. Let me shift to another point of view, and it comes from another Democrat, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. He takes a very different view. He says basically we should stay the course because, he says, real progress is being made. He said this is a war between 27 million Iraqis who want freedom and 10,000 terrorists. He says we're in a watershed transformation. What about that?

Sen. KERRY: Let me--I--first of all, there is so much more that unites Democrats than divides us. And Democrats have much more in common with each other than they do with George Bush's policy right now. Now Joe Lieberman, I believe, also voted for the resolution which said the president needs to make more clear what he's doing and set out benchmarks, and that the policy hasn't been working. We all believe him when you say, `Stay the course.' That's the president's policy, which hasn't been changing, which is a policy of failure. I don't agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is you've got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment. You've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis. And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not...

SAN ANTONIO) -- Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years. [...]

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam..."

Early Christmas Holiday Present for CA legislators

December 04, 2005

'Judge' rapes victim all over again ...

Some things you read just make you stare at the screen in disbelief. This is one of them.

BEAVERTON -- A municipal judge found a 19-year-old woman guilty Friday of filing a false police report after she said she was raped by three young men.

Even though the woman never said she lied or recanted her story, city prosecutors say they took the unusual step of filing charges against her because of the seriousness of her accusations.

Certainly false reports of rape can be made, and have been. Rare, but not unknown. But in this instance we are dealing with an extraordinary chain of events here that boggle the mind. Especially outregeous is the Judge's own "reasoning":

After a day-and-a-half trial, Municipal Judge Peter A. Ackerman on Friday convicted the woman of filing a false police report, a class-C misdemeanor. Ackerman explained his decision, saying there were many inconsistencies in the stories of the four, but that he found the young men to be more credible. He also said he relied on the testimony of a Beaverton police detective and the woman's friends who said she did not act traumatized in the days following the incident.

The judge based his decision solely on the credibility of the participants when he even noted they all had inconsistencies in their testimony? Where is the level of 'reasonable' doubt? What about forensics? What did the rapekit and exam show?

And where, dear GOD, is it written that assault victims must act in a certain manner?

First off, WHY did the prosecuters go after her? This meally-mouth statement ...

The bottom line, [Ted Naemura, the assistant city attorney who prosecuted the case] said, is that people can't use the criminal justice system to further their own ends.

... is insulting. Sure, but what was this woman's motives? The prosecutor is alleging she had a reason to send these people to jail. What was it, schmuck?

And let's not let her own attorney off the hook. Why Jeff Napoli did not request a jury trial in this situation absolutely has me baffled.

I will say one thing. While Napoli is appealing the case, Oregonians should be looking into either recalling Judge Ackerman or setting up a campaign fund to defeat him next election.

Those people who love Mommy Sheehan?

Sunni leaders who are still willing to participate in the Dec. 15 elections told Marines in a meeting in Iraq that they are encouraged by the actions of activist Cindy Sheehan and others who are calling for a U.S. withdrawal. [...]

Sheehan should be congratulated for showing the Iraqi people and the rest of the world what democracy is all about.*

Those lovers of democracy got the memo wrong. They confused ballots with bombs

BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 4, 2005 — A Sunni Arab insurgent group was plotting to attack the trial of Saddam Hussein when it resumed Monday, Iraq's national security adviser said Sunday.

The statement by national security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie's office said the 1920 Revolution Brigades planned to fire rockets at the court building during Monday's session. Iraqi intelligence uncovered the plot, but the statement did not say whether anyone had been arrested. [...]

The slow pace of the proceedings has angered many Iraqis -- especially majority Shiites -- who believe Saddam should have already been punished for his alleged crimes. Shiites and Kurds were heavily oppressed by Saddam's Sunni Arab-dominated regime.

December 03, 2005

In flagrante delicto

In the throes of lust, people can be reckless, silly and, well, a little stupid on choice of location. It makes for funny stories. However, for out-right belly laughes, do take a couple of minutes to read of Scott Kaufman's experience when the couple he interrupted in his own office reacted unexpectedly.

A reminder about race

"From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people."

December 02, 2005

Yes, Virginia, the USPS does believe in Christmas Stamps

There's a passage in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged where the character, Cherryl describes the horror of having nothing solid to grab hold when trying to deal with certain people:

I can't explain what it feels like, I can't catch hold of it -- and that's part of the terror, that you can't catch hold of anything -- it's as if the whole world were suddenly destroyed, but not by an explosion -- an explosion is something hard and solid -- but destroyed by ... by some horrible kind of softening ... as if nothing were solid, nothing held any shape at all, and you could poke your finger through stone walls and the stone would give, like jelly, and mountains would slither, and buildings would switch their shapes like clouds -- and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but goo.

It wasn't terror, but this past week in trying to take what few moments I had to try and get some definitive answers on the "overtly religious" stamp question was like trying to wrestle of whole vat of marshmellows. A person at the customer service line wouldn't discuss the issue. One local PO counter person "heard" about the discontinuance but then immediately assured me that the 2006 stamp would go forward. Another one, when I asked to purchase Christmas stamps kept saying "Don't you want the cookie ones? Are you SURE you don't want the cookie ones?" I then asked "Are they going to have a new Madonna&Child in 2006?" "Think so," she then pushed the stamps across the counter at me. I said, "Well, have a Merry Christmas." Her reply was a grunt. Hey, maybe she was just having a lousy day.

So I was happy that late this afternoon I was alerted that reporter Dennis Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had found a few USPS higher-ups to make solid statements that next years' Madonna&Child Stamp is still on deck

But patrons looking for a new religiously themed stamp this year are getting leftover Madonna printings from last year, touching off a wave of reports that the Postal Service was planning to discontinue religiously themed Christmas stamps.

"It's absolutely not true," said Diana Svoboda, spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh district. Next year's printing will include a new Madonna and the price stamped over her left shoulder will explain why a new one wasn't printed this year: Rates are going up to 39 cents per letter Jan. 8.

Roddy also cites the story I had here about my mother's encounter at a Southern California Post Office, where it wasn't a matter of confusion between mom and the employee, but one where the employee himself had heard about the discontinuation of "too religious" stamps. Roddy also writes

The encounter also has the clerk informing Darleen's mom that he is not permitted to say "Merry Christmas." Darleen did not respond to an e-mail requesting more details.

He did send me an email, 1 pm Dec 1st. Unfortunately, yesterday evening I did not go through my domain email and missed his deadline. I would have been quite happy to give him the exact PO location and/or put him directly in touch with mom.

As I wrote Roddy, I'm too familiar with the way government bureacracy works and it isn't unknown for potential policies to be "floated", and if reaction is universally negative, such policy promptly "disappears" and higher-ups will strike a stance of sheer innocence. What, you took that seriously?

Whatever the reason, the end result is that the USPS is publicly onboard for new issues of stamps even with "overtly" religious themes.

BTW, as the article shows, the worry about USPS was not about rumor. Be it my mom, Rev. Murphy or the numerous readers who have written to Michelle Malkin about their direct experiences, the problem lies within the USPS bureaucracy itself and maybe a few of its employees.

Of tears and the immorality and indecency of the Adopt-A-Murderer Club

It’s five pm and the John and Ken Show starts their “Tookie Must Die” hour. I listen to the clips of the latest circus antics of the Tookie-ites, from the NAACP to such pillars of persuasive pontification as Mike Farrell.

Most of the time I grin or roll my eyes at the tortured rhetoric from celebrities about their latest Death Row pet (though I noticed that 1000th executed perp,Kenneth Lee Boyd, didn’t have the usual retinue of Adopt-A-Murderer club members). What a wonderful way to gain fame, to see one’s name in news reports, clips on television, radio interviews …

And that’s just the celebs.

Thursday night got to me. I’m listening as I drive home from work and I find myself weeping. It was not Tookie. He overdrew his moral bank account long ago and I just await the account’s final closing.

The co-worker I partner with is on vacation this week, and as it happens, this week was all about little fires. From processing the reports on a major shooting that got wide media coverage last weekend to numerous “We have to have it now so we can go pick up the perp” walk-through warrants, it was if my small corner of So. Cal had gone nuts.

Or nuttier.

Some of it rolls by me with barely a second look – drug charges, early Christmas shoplifting (only 23 thieving days left!) Some make me laugh – people actually flying in from the east coast to burgle or use fake credit cards at the local malls.

Then there are the cases of violence.

Technology now allows a police officer to use a digital camera, download the pics to a computer and print them off on the color printer. All the better to accompany the report (rather than waiting for film to be processed, a delay that saw actual photos meeting up with a case long after filing). Late yesterday I process a walk-through warrant and am confronted by two sheets of color pictures taken in ER. A woman, her face swollen with lumps and deep purple and red with bruising, a broken arm, bruised and cracked ribs, who was beaten and kicked into unconsciousness by her husband. In front of the kids. I can’t help but imagine the pain she went through as she lay on the floor trying to avoid the beating, but the kicker was near the last line in the report.

Wait for it.

She doesn’t want to press charges. (Thank God she doesn’t get that choice) My emotions are torn between horror at her injuries and rage at her stupidity.

But she’s not why I wept. She was just the preamble to my emotional venting. It was what my agency liaison told me to expect in the next day or so.

First, one small 18 month old, admitted to ER Thursday with fractures of the arm, leg and more than six ribs. 18 MONTHS OLD. What’s a child that age like? It is a child with baby-plumb cheeks and pudgy little hands. A child that sees everything around him or her as new and needing of touching and exploring. A child that will climb into your lap to hug your neck and lay his/her head on your chest to hear your heart.

Second, a FOUR MONTH OLD, admitted to ICU Thursday with FOURTEEN separate fractures and was not expect to live. A baby that died this morning.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, people! A FOUR MONTH OLD BABY!!! And some of the fractures are not “new”. Four months old with healing fractures.

That’s why I weep. It’s the kids that get to me. Every time.

I was thinking of those babies driving home and listening to the Tookie circus. Where is Mike Farrell when these tiny victims are laying in hospital beds instead of being in a home in arms that love and cherish them? Jamie Foxx said "The only birthday present I want from the governor is clemency for Stan `Tookie' Williams." But where is he for the baby that won't even have a first birthday? Elliott Gould? The ex-Mr. Babs doing anything to see his name in print? Obviously no thought for victims.

They all DISGUST ME. They all live far from gang violence, the predations, threats, violence. They don't have any contact or any real knowledge of the human offal that Tookie Williams created and sustained.

Stop me before I drink again...

A coalition of lawyers who have actively and successfully sued tobacco companies says it is close to filing a class-action lawsuit against soft-drink makers for selling sugared sodas in schools. The lawyers, who have been trying to develop a case against the soft-drink makers for more than two years, say a lawsuit could be filed within the next few weeks, probably in Massachusetts, which has one of the nation's most plaintiff-friendly consumer-protection laws.

Thank you, MA, home of the KK Senators.

Leading the litigation effort is Richard A. Daynard, an associate dean at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, who is also president of the Tobacco Control Resource Center and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, both of which have provided legal support to attorneys suing tobacco companies. Daynard was involved in many of the state cases against the tobacco firms that led to the landmark $246 billion settlement in 1998. [...]

"You want to keep kids away from dangerous objects, and a soda machine is demonstrated to be a dangerous object for kids."

Hmmm. Let me see how this goes. Soda is dangerous for minors, abortion is not.

Charmaine is pro-life while I describe myself as reluctant pro-choice. However, she makes exactly every point I have made here in the past concerning parental notification legislation. The only argument that her debate opponent, Jennifer, could muster is that the laws "don't work".

Can anyone cite any law on the books that "works" 100%? Is that our criteria for public policy? If it doesn't work, don't enact it?

Too many "pro-choice" people believe Ayotte vs Planned Parenthood is about abortion. It is not. It is about the rights, responsibilities and obligations of parents towards their children and if public policy should support or undercut those rights, etc.

This is exactly the common ground upon which reasonable people on all sides of the "abortion debate" can agree.

Eileen had to sign a consent form for follow-up surgery to repair the damage done by the abortionist she didn’t have to be told about. To add insult to injury she was responsible for the medical costs which amounted to over $27,000.

Ms. Roberts is a better lady than I am. In the same situation, I would have tracked down the abortionist and aborted his liver via his nose.

Yes, Barry, go f*ck yourself

Barry weighs in on the pushback of people against the effort to de-Christmas Christmas*

This week in Washington, D.C., the “Capitol Holiday Tree” was renamed the “Capitol Christmas Tree” at the request of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

It was called a Christmas tree until the mid-1990s, Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean said. “The Speaker thought it was important to reflect what Americans call their trees, which are Christmas trees,” he said.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said using the term “Christmas tree” excludes people of other faiths and backgrounds.

Barry, don't you have some lawsuits to file? You know, like keeping The Chronicles of Narnia out of the hands of little kids?

Yes, Nancy, I do question your patriotism

I just heard some clips of the Botox Queen on the Jon Stewart show yesterday. No transcript yet, but the quote as far as I can recall where Nancy is responding to Stewart's mendacious statement that bringing democracy to Iraq was never part of any invasion plan until yesterday: